


Business As Usual

by airspaniel



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Crack, Kink/Cliche Challenge, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-30
Updated: 2008-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/pseuds/airspaniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unidentified alien artifacts, playing with them, and why you probably shouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Business As Usual

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [fourth annual Kink/Cliche Multi-Fandom challenge"](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/553257.html) hosted by [](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/profile)[**svmadelyn**](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/). My prompt was "sudden mutual telepathy or soulbonding, and the hijinks that ensue," and I threw in a side of vague "aliens made them do it," just for kicks. Attentively beta read and Brit-picked by the always outstanding [](http://drunken-hedghog.livejournal.com/profile)[**drunken_hedghog**](http://drunken-hedghog.livejournal.com/), and lovingly dedicated to her as well. Comments/crit always fawned over and adored!

The stones were sort of an iridescent green, emerald-cut and sparkling, set in matching thick leather bands.

Jack was instantly attracted. Ianto feared for his life. And justifiably so, given the readings they'd been picking up on the scanners.

Before Ianto could mention that the strange artifacts with alarming, pulsing energy signatures probably shouldn't be touched before they knew what they were dealing with, Jack had picked them up and laid them across his palm. He stared covetously, as if he were appraising fine jewelry.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Any idea what they are?"

Jack closed his hand into a fist around the stones, brow furrowed in concentration. "Well, Ianto, is there any chance youre thinking about shoving me up against this tree and having your wicked way with me until I beg for mercy?"

Ianto's eyebrows shot up, but he managed to keep his voice level. "I'm afraid not, sir."

"Damn, just me, then," Jack muttered. "Then I have no idea. Unless..." He separated the bands, holding one in each hand and faced Ianto with a mischievous expression. "What am I thinking right now?"

Ianto hazarded a guess. "Would it by any chance be something about me shoving you against a tree and having my wicked way with you until you beg for mercy?"

Jack's face fell. "No, I was thinking about chicken. We missed lunch." As soon as it was gone the mischief was back, and Jack leaned intently into Ianto's personal space. "It's a great idea, though. Definitely bears further investigation."

"Jack..." Ianto protested with a smile.

"Come on," Jack purred. "I'm always saying you need more field experience."

Despite himself, Ianto laughed. "We do have actual work to do, sir." He reached out to brush Jack's fingers with his own, a promise for later

There was a flash of green light so bright that he fell back, arms flying up reflexively to shield his eyes. When he lowered them again, the right felt notably heavier than the left.

 _Of course they're a set._

 _Of course, they're a set!_

The band had wrapped around Jack's right wrist just above his watch. He held his arm up, admiring how the stone caught the light.

Ianto was much more preoccupied with the fact that the band had no visible seams or obvious methods by which to remove it, and was now seemingly permanently affixed to his arm.

He tried to remain calm. "Okay, how do we take them off?"

"Dont panic," Jack said. "Theres no reason to believe they're harmful." _Besides, theyre really hot._

 _I dont care how hot they are!_ Ianto snapped. _We don't know what they_ do _, and_ his face went white. _And we haven't said any of that out loud._

Jack smiled his infuriating told you smile. "I guess now we know what they do."

Ianto just looked horrified, and did his best to think only in Welsh.

*****

"So you can read minds now?" Gwen put her hands on her hips defensively, already braced for impact.

"Just Ianto's," Jack explained. "And it's not so much mind-reading as it is a kind of two-way radio effect. Like a transmitter and receiver. I can hear if he's thinking _at_ me, and some surface thoughts, but I can't just poke around."

"Thankfully", Ianto groused.

Gwen quirked an eyebrow. "And you, Ianto? You can hear Jack's thoughts?"

"Unfortunately."

 _Hey! Im hurt_

"What's it like?" Gwen asked, a little too enthusiastically.

"So far?" Ianto sighed. "Like an easy listening station with a DJ who wants to shag everyone."

"Now I really am hurt," Jack pouted. "I have such hidden depths."

"Well, all I'm getting is Barry Manilow," Ianto retorted.

Jack's answering smirk meant nothing but trouble. "Oh, Ianto... well, you came and you gave without taking..."

 _Stop it, Jack. I mean it._

"But I sent you away..."

 _This is harassment!_

"Oh, Ianto. You kissed me and..."

"Tosh, help, please?" Ianto cried, a little desperately.

"I don't understand," Tosh mused, staring at the scanner data, "It's some sort of magnetic force, I think, but..." She punched a few buttons on a handheld device that looked too much like a phaser for Ianto's comfort.

"Nothing. Nothing works!" She dropped the device heavily on the desk, still poring over the numbers. "The bond just isnt degrading."

Privately, Ianto thought it was quite degrading, actually. Across the room, Jack snorted. Of course, there was no such thing as a private thought any more. Not since Jack had seen something sparkly and leather in the woods and

 _Come on, Ianto. How was I supposed to know?_

 _Strange energy readings? Pulsing green glow? Sure, sounds like a_ great _idea to pick that up and play with it without knowing what it is!_

 _They seemed so harmless! And you have to admit, they are pretty hot._

"If you could control your bloody leather fetish for five seconds, we wouldnt be in this mess!"

The sudden and uncomfortable silence in the Hub told him he had just said that out loud.

"Sorry," he mumbled, glowering at Jack as hard as he could, even as the tips of his ears turned pink.

Owen looked up from where he had been working on Jack's wrist with what appeared to be bolt cutters. "Right," he said. "Well, back in the land of the helpful, brute force isnt doing much either."

"Is it causing you any pain?" Gwen asked impatiently, arms crossed across her chest in a way that suggested she was getting really bored with the whole thing.

"No," Jack answered, just as Ianto said, "Well, not physically." The pout Jack turned on him in response would have put a box of wet puppies to shame.

"Then we'll just get on with the day, shall we?" Gwen had her business voice on, and there was actually work to be done, so there was no point arguing. Ianto slid off the exam table, trying to pull his shirt cuff down over the bulky leather band.

The pale skin of Ianto's forearm caught Jack's attention, the dark leather standing out like a tattoo, an indelible mark on that silken flesh, and his mouth watered just thinking about it.

Hang on, Tosh murmured, looking at the readings. "What was that?"

Jack smiled secretively, and Ianto's already pink ears went red. "Nothing."

"Well, whatever you didn't do just made the bond weaken." Tosh swiveled the screen around so everyone could see the readout. "The cuffs definitely reacted to whatever you were just thinking."

"Please don't call them cuffs," Ianto mumbled, head in his hands. He held his breath to keep from gasping, as his mind was suddenly flooded with Jack's Technicolor fantasies of Ianto in bondage.

"What were you thinking about, Jack?" And only Gwen could ask that question honestly.

"What does he _ever_ think about?" Ianto growled.

"Oh. _Oh._ " Gwen turned a very pretty shade of pink.

Owen rolled his eyes. "Leave it to you to find sex-activated alien technology."

"You say that like it's something new," Jack deadpanned. "Tosh, remember that thing we found that..."

"Yes, Jack, I remember." Tosh said hurriedly, cutting him off, and now it was her turn to go pink. And the mental image Ianto had gotten from Jack had been at once startlingly vivid, intensely arousing, and really very disturbing.

This ordeal was quite effectively ensuring that he'd never be able to look any of his coworkers in the eyes again.

 _Sure you will. You got over last year's Christmas party._

"Well, it's working, in any case. The fluctuations have been stronger and more frequent in the last few minutes." Tosh cleared her throat, trying to sound as professional as possible. "I think perhaps if you were to, um act on some of these impulses, the bond may weaken sufficiently enough to get them off. I mean! I mean, remove them."

"Okay," Jack clapped his hands decisively, springing into action. "Show's over, nothing to see here," he ordered, one hand flat against Owen's back while his other arm wrapped around Gwen and Tosh; ushering them all unceremoniously towards the stairs and out of the room. "Good work today, everyone's dismissed until tomorrow. Have a good night and get the hell out."

"Should I leave the sensors on?" Tosh called. "There might be further fluctuations in the wave pattern that could..."

Gwen cut her off, shepherding her through the door. "Oh, for gods sake, Tosh. Leave it."

Ianto tugged his sleeve down; leaving the shirt cuff unbuttoned as he hopped off the exam table and made for the stairs himself.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"Oh, I thought I might go home early; get some tidying done. Since you did dismiss everyone. Sir." Ianto said primly, trying very hard to keep his mind a total blank.

"Really?" Jack grinned in a slow, dangerous way that suggested he already knew the answer. He crossed the room almost casually, especially given the incredibly explicit and _creative_ things he was thinking. "There isn't something else you'd rather do?"

 _Yes! Yes, oh_ god _, yes!_

"Nothing comes to mind."

Jack planted his hands on the table, pinning Ianto's narrow hips with his own. He ran his fingers idly up Ianto's arm, over the dark leather and bright stone, and kindly ignored the way his touch made the younger man shiver. "I thought you were so desperate to get rid of this."

"I don't know," Ianto replied, close enough to kiss, but not just yet. "It is sort of pretty, in a masculine way." He couldnt suppress a smile, and Jack took it as an invitation, leaning in to mouth the soft skin just under Ianto's ear.

 _My quarters. Five minutes. We have a lot of experimenting to do._

Ianto gasped and arched into it, but Jack stepped away, and the few inches that separated their bodies seemed like miles. _Not here,_ Jack thought, even as his brain was suggesting all kinds of things he'd like to do _right_ here, right against this table. And on it. And under it. Possibly through it.

Ianto wasn't quite sure he was going to live through this.

Jack laughed, hands in his pockets and headed up the stairs. "Five minutes, Ianto," he called, not even looking back.

Ianto took a moment to compose himself, another to wonder what the range was on this thought-hearing effect, a few more to decide he didn't care, and most of the rest of the time was occupied with thinking of a few experiments he'd like to try on Jack, preferably in a more private and much more naked place.

Twenty seconds to walk across the Hub, and exactly five minutes later he stood at Jack's door, being pulled into a very deep, very enthusiastic kiss.

*****

Fifteen minutes after that, and both the jeweled cuffs were on the floor, looking as innocent as they had at the start.

Jack and Ianto kept up their experiments for a further hour and a half. And two more hours after dinner. And then again the next morning.

Purely in the interests of science.  



End file.
